Amended Exchange Rates of Foreign Currency Notified

In exercise of the powers conferred by Section 14 of the Customs Act, 1962 (52 of 1962), the Central Board of Excise & Customs hereby makes the following further amendments in the Notification of the Government of India, Ministry of Finance (Department of Revenue) No. 09/2015-CUSTOMS (N.T.) dated the 15th January, 2015 published in the Gazette Of India, Part-II, Section 3, Sub-Section (ii), Extraordinary vide number S.O.167(E) dated, the 15th January, 2015, namely:-

In the Schedule-I of the said Notification, for Serial Nos. 3 & 15 and the entries relating thereto, the following shall be substituted, namely:-

SCHEDULE-I

These rates will be effective from 31st January, 2015.

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More Autonomy to be Given in Decision Making to DPSUs and OFBs for Better Performance: Parrikar

The Defence Minister Shri Manohar Parrikar today said MoD would be bringing about major changes in the Defence Procurement Procedure and the Defence Production Policy to provide greater autonomy to the Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs) and Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) units for their expansion and diversification.

Addressing the Consultative Committee attached to his Ministry, here, he said, we need to delegate powers to DPSUs to enable them to take decisions so that they improve the serviceability of the platforms available to the Armed Forces. “Every machine in operation is like adding an additional equipment. DPSUs will be provided support but they must think like a commercial organisation”, he said.

Referring to the Make in India Procedure in Defence, Shri Parrikar said it needs further improvement. Defence industry in India is a unique industry where the only customer is the Services.

The Meeting discussed in detail the performance of the 41 Ordnance factories and 9 DPSUs.

Taking part in the discussions, Members of Parliament wanted to know whether the Government has drawn up a clear roadmap to reduce Defence imports. Some members felt that there was a concerted campaign to denigrate the public sector and to promote the private sector. They felt that unlike consumer products, the design and development of defence product has a long gestation and the contribution of DPSUs has to be appreciated in that light.

They expressed the view that the private sector must be promoted in a big way, but not at the cost of the public sector.

Disinvestment of Coal India Ltd (CIL) Through OFS Successfully Completed; Rs 22557.63 Crore Accrued to the Government from this Disinvestment Process; This is the Largest Ever Disinvestment Among Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSES)

Disinvestment of Coal India Ltd (CIL) through OFS was successfully completed today. An amount of Rs 22557.63 crore was realized through the CIL disinvestment process. This is the largest ever disinvestment among Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) which involved disinvestment of 5% of the paid-up equity of Government of India (with an option to retain additional 5% in case of oversubscription) in CIL. The total offer size (5%+5%) was totaling 63.16 crores shares. However the total bids received were for a quantity of 67.5 crores across all categories. The oversubscription to the total quantity was around 5%. The category wise break-up of bidded quantities is as under:

The major highlights of the issue are as under:

(i) The CIL disinvestment has attracted the largest FII participation in a Government OFS.

(ii) Out of the total shares offered for sale, 20% were allocated for Retail Investors i.e. those investors who placed bids for shares of total value of not more than Rs. 2.00 lakh. Rs 1852.55 have been received from the retail investors, the largest in any OFS so far.

(iii) Government of India offered 5% discount to Retail investors on price bid to attract more Retail Investors.

(iv) Government fixed Rs. 358/- floor price for the auction of shares which was 4.5% less than the closing price on 29.2.2015.

(v) With this divestment, the Government of India’s share in CIL would come down to 79.65%.

(vi) The total receipts accruing to the Government from the CIL disinvestment are Rs 22557.63/-

In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (2) of section 14 of the Customs Act, 1962 (52 of 1962), the Central Board of Excise & Customs, being satisfied that it is necessary and expedient so to do, hereby makes the following amendment in the notification of the Government of India in the Ministry of Finance (Department of Revenue), No. 36/2001-Customs (N.T.), dated the 3rd August, 2001, published in the Gazette of India, Extraordinary, Part-II, Section-3, Sub-section (ii), vide number S. O. 748 (E), dated the 3rd August, 2001, namely:-

In the said notification, for TABLE-1, TABLE-2, and TABLE-3 the following Tables shall be substituted namely:-

TABLE-1

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Gold award for the Income Tax Department under National Award on E-Governance 2014-15

The Income Tax Department has been awarded GOLD by the Government of India under category “Cat-I-Excellence in Government Process Re-engineering” for National Award on e-governance 2014-15. The award has been conferred for “TDS Reconciliation Analysis & Correction Enabling System (TRACES)” project launched by the Department. The Project marks a major step in ensuring TDS compliance through the processing of TDS returns and comprehensive data processing of TDS statements using technology driven end-to-end processes. At present 15 Lakh deductors and 2.5 crore tax payers are using various e-enabled online services through the CPC (TDS). The award was presented today during the 18th National Conference on e-governance held at Mahatma Mandir, Gandhinagar, Gujarat. This third award on e-governance to the Income Tax Department in the last 5 years speaks volumes about the commitment of the Department to e-governance and to move towards a non-adversarial and tax-payer friendly regime.